Living For A Purpose

I had always underestimated life and what it means to live. No one can decide for you how to live, or if you even choose to “live”. You live the way you want to live, because you choose the choices you make everyday in life. I’ve grown to understand that, and that the way other people live their lives affects you as well. Sometimes for better or worse, but either way testing you as a person and the actions you make. As a teenager we are tested every moment of our lives. Yet many teens feel that this is the time where your actions don’t matter. Or use the excuse that I’m just a kid and want to live a little, want to follow the crowd, and feel that the choices they make are erased when tomorrow comes along. Society has made this the norm for teens it seems, but we decide how we live. You want to know what I believe? Living this life for a purpose.

I lived my life this way all the way up until 7th grade. The problem was I realized I wasn’t living really at all. Or at least not for the right reasons in my opinion. Yea my life may have been portrayed as a solid life probably. Had a good amount of friends, played all the sports and was athletic, had some girlfriends, had good grades and made a decent name for myself. Where was I all wrong? Well maybe it wasn’t my fault, but believing wasn’t a part of me. Because of this I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t that great of a person as I thought I was. I was hurtful towards other people more then not, I was cocky and overconfident, and was very judgmental and sinned a lot in many little ways. Could I be this way even with beliefs? Yea, but believing in something gave me the opportunity to change. To open my eyes and see how I had been living, and how I could be living instead. Now I feel I’m finally living.

I am happy to say I am a new person. For the last couple years of my life I have found how I want to live my life. I can proudly say that I changed so much for the better when I found God in my life. I strongly believe in my religion and have set morals for myself as a person. I follow the word of God, try to always put others before myself, choose not to smoke or drink, try and not cuss or say hurtful things. But mainly I want to live to love, and work to have the least amount of sin in my life as possible. This process of trying to live for something and minimize the other will be a never ending task. But serving and working everyday in life for something I believe in is worth it. Because I believe in living for a purpose.

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This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.